A Constitution of Liberty?

By

Roland Vaubel

Updated June 14, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET

After the dramatic collapse of talks over the EU's Constitutional Treaty last December, the draft is back on the table ahead of this weekend's summit of bloc leaders, who may even sign off on the project. So now's a good time to reconsider its merits.

Traditionally, constitutions are a means of limiting the power of government. But they can also be abused to legitimize powers that governmental institutions have surreptitiously...